Hope on the Inside

by Marie Bostwick

  In a way, she supposed she was, and so she went on.

  “Farm to table dining is very popular right now,” Hope explained. “People have started to realize that fresh food, produced locally on small farms or ranches, is healthier for you. And tastes a lot better too. This dinner was a chance for sheep ranchers to educate people about how to use the food that can be made from their herds: meat, cheese—”

  “Cheese?” Deedee asked, her voice incredulous. “From sheep?”

  “Sure. Sheep make milk too. You never heard of sheep’s milk cheese?”

  Deedee made a face. “I like Velveeta.”

  “That’s not real cheese,” Steph said, giving Deedee an elbow. “Says so on the package. They make it out of oil and chemicals and yellow dye.”

  “So what? Tastes good.” Deedee looked at Hope. “What does sheep cheese taste like?”

  “It comes in a lot of different flavors and textures,” Hope said. “But the kind I had was crumbly and tasted a little bit sharp. They put it in a salad made with arugula, mint, and pomegranate seeds, served with garlic mashed potatoes and tiny, tender lamb chops grilled over hickory smoke.”

  The women, who were practically salivating by this time, issued a collective groan of longing and pleasure that brought a smile to Hope’s face.

  Though she’d been working at the prison for only a month, she knew that food was a hot topic of conversation. Inmates spent hours talking about the dishes they missed most, reciting the recipes that they, their mothers, or their grandmothers used to make, and dreaming aloud about the first thing they would find to eat when they were on the outside. Since the cafeteria served no red meat apart from hamburger, and then only rarely, steaks and chops often topped the post-release wish list.

  “What about dessert?” Mandy asked. “What did they have?”

  “They brought everybody a plate with five different desserts, just a delicious little bite of each one.”

  There was another groan.

  “What kind?” Deedee asked. “Pie? Pudding? Cobbler? I need specifics here.”

  Hope stepped back from the table. “Tell you what. Before I do, what if everybody picks out three colors of roving they like and I’ll demonstrate how we’re going to use it to make one of these little felted birds, okay?”

  Hope held up a felted cardinal, vermillion red with a bright yellow beak and beady black eyes, that she’d made the night before. The women murmured again, this time with the kind of cooing and oohing that accompanies the sighting of a newborn baby or gamboling kittens. Hope grinned.

  “It’s so cute. You really think I can make that?” Steph asked, tipping her head to one side, her skepticism evident.

  “I know you can. Now, come on, everybody. Pick out your colors and let’s get to work.”

  * * *

  What should have taken five minutes—simply choosing their materials—took nearly twenty. Many of the women had a hard time choosing colors for their bird’s body and wings.

  Hope had noticed that before. So many of them seemed so uncertain, incapable of making decisions, as if frightened of making a mistake. It would have been faster and easier just to make their choices for them, but Hope recognized that, in some instances, helping the women gain confidence in their own choices and opinions was more important than imparting any crafting skills. Assuring them that there were no wrong decisions, Hope waited patiently until every student had made her choice.

  Once they did, Hope was finally ready to begin teaching.

  The basic felting technique she demonstrated wasn’t hugely difficult to master, but it did take time to complete a project. Hope showed them how to immerse the balls of wool into bowls of water, squeeze out the liquid to make them smaller and more dense, and begin stabbing the wool with their felting needles, over and over and over again to work the wool into the correct shape.

  “Hey, make sure you stab the wool and not each other,” Hope cautioned. “These felting needles are small, but I had to get special permission to bring them in. If anything goes wrong here, you’re all back to origami cranes. Got it?”

  For the very first time since Hope had begun teaching in the prison, her students laughed at one of her jokes. She savored the sound, feeling like she’d won a prize.

  Hope worked the room, stopping to check in with each of her students, offering gentle instruction, correction, or encouragement, as the situation warranted. After working her way back to the front of the classroom, satisfied that each woman had a handle on the procedure, Hope plucked a ball of robin’s-egg blue roving from the balls left on the table, took a seat, and began working on a bird of her own.

  For a few minutes, the room was quiet but comfortably so. This was the peaceful, contented, homey silence that occurs when women enjoy what they’re doing and the presence of their sisters. But then, as inevitably happens in these situations, one woman cast an admiring glance at the work of her neighbor and followed up with a compliment that was soon returned. Then someone asked for an opinion and there was another question, both received answers, and soon the room was humming with companionable conversation and soft, pleasant laughter.

  In that moment, apart from the uniformity of their clothing, no one entering that room would have been able to tell that group of women from any gathering of needlewomen anywhere in the world or known that the members of this peaceable, productive sorority lived inside the walls of a prison. For a short time, the prisoners, too, forgot where they were.

  Deedee held up her completed bird, a bright yellow canary with one pink wing and the other purple, and asked if it wasn’t the cutest thing ever. After receiving a round of affirmation from the room, she asked Hope if she could make another one. Hope looked up at the clock, surprised to see that there were only ten minutes left in the class.

  “Not today. We’re out of time.” She put down her own bird, with its cotton candy pink body and blue wings, and clapped her hands together. “All right, everybody. We need to wrap up. If you didn’t finish your bird, leave it on the table for next time. Let’s start cleaning up and handing in your supplies.

  “Mandy?” she said, looking toward the student whom, though quieter than all the rest, she felt most connected to. There was such a glint of determination in her eyes. “Would you mind collecting everybody’s felting needles and giving them to me? There should be nine. Nobody can leave until we have an accurate count.”

  “Only eight. You’ve got the ninth needle,” Deedee said, pointing at Hope’s hand. “Nita isn’t here, remember?”

  “That’s right. I almost forgot,” Hope said, wondering if Nita’s absence might account for the sudden about-face in the collective attitude of her students.

  “She’d have dropped out anyway,” Steph said. “She only hung on because of the bet.”

  Hope frowned. “What bet?”

  Steph looked like she’d suddenly swallowed a frog. She clamped her lips closed, but Deedee, who had a habit of engaging her mouth before her brain, was happy to answer for her.

  “Nita bet Steph five bags of Fritos that you’d quit before you finished your first month.”

  “She what?”

  “Oh yeah,” Deedee said. “But that was the second bet. The first was that you’d start to cry during class, but that only paid out if it happened during your first week. I lost out on that one, but it was only one bag of chips. Not so bad.

  “Tell you the truth, I really didn’t think you’d last, but I’m sure glad you did. You turned out to be way cooler than I thought,” Deedee said, her tone marked with admiration as well as surprise.

  “Well. Thanks. I guess.” Hope turned to look at Steph, who was staring down at the tabletop with flaming cheeks. “And what about you? Did you win or lose?”

  “I won,” she said sheepishly. “Honestly, it’s not as bad as it sounds. . . .”

  “No?” Hope arched her brows. “Because even if you were hoping I’d stick it out, betting on whether a person could be so mean and behave so badly that i
t would make another person cry or quit her job sounds pretty bad.”

  Steph lifted her eyes to meet Hope’s gaze.

  “Sorry.”

  “So am I. Don’t do it again. To anybody.”

  Steph nodded, then got up from her seat and lined up with the others next to the door. Mandy handed the needles to Hope, saying they were all accounted for.

  “Thank you,” Hope said as a guard who would escort the women back to the dayroom knocked on the door. “Hey, can you stay behind for a minute? I’ll let the guard know I’m walking you back. I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Okay,” Mandy replied.

  Hope spoke to the guard, then said she’d see everybody on Thursday before walking back to the front of the room with Mandy. The women, holding the tiny birds cupped in their hands as if they might suddenly start flapping their felted wings and fly away, chorused back their thanks and farewells.

  As the last of them were heading through the door, Hope looked over her shoulder and called Steph’s name. Steph stopped in her tracks, still looking shamefaced. Hope pointed at her.

  “Hey! You owe me a bag of Fritos. Maybe two.”

  Steph’s lips twitched into a smile. “I’ll bring them to the next class.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  Hope smiled and waved goodbye before turning back toward Mandy, who was studying her with a somber expression.

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “You?” Hope let out a surprised little laugh. “You’re the least of my problems. I just wanted to thank you for your help today.”

  Mandy gave her a doubtful look. “Yeah, well . . . All I did was pick up some needles. It’s not like it was real hard.”

  “No, you’re right,” Hope admitted. “What I really meant to say was thank you for . . . well, for everything. I know we’ve never really talked, but up until today I’ve felt like you were the only one who was actually on my side in all this. Now I think I know why.”

  “I wasn’t part of the bet, if that’s what you’re asking,” Mandy said. “I didn’t know anything about it. And if I had, I’d have stayed out of it. Around here, the smartest thing you can be is Switzerland. Keep your head down and don’t take sides.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Hope said. “But Mandy, tell me something—I’m just trying to figure this place out—why would they have done something like that? Who bets on the misery of somebody they don’t even know?”

  “Oh, man. You really don’t have this place figured out yet, do you? Did you ever read Alice in Wonderland?”

  “Sure, a few times. My mother read it to me and I read it to my kids.”

  “Okay. Well. I didn’t read it until I got here. Actually, I hardly ever read anything until I got here,” she admitted. “Anyway, you know how when Alice falls down the rabbit hole and ends up in Wonderland, everybody she meets is kind of crazy and emotional and does strange stuff for no real reason?

  “Well, it’s like that. Outside the world makes sense, at least some of the time. But those rules don’t apply in here. People just do what they do. They don’t think. They just try to get through the day, kill the time. You know what the worst part about prison is?”

  Hope shook her head.

  “That,” Mandy replied, and pointed to the wall clock. “Time moves slower here than anyplace in the world. You do what you have to do to make it pass. It wasn’t personal, them betting to see if you’d cry or quit. They were just trying to fight off the boredom.

  “Well,” Mandy conceded, “maybe except for Nita. She did it to be mean. But even then it wasn’t personal. Nita doesn’t have anything against you one way or the other; she’s mean because she is. She doesn’t know another way. She’s one of those people you should just try to avoid. If you can’t, then you’ve got to stand up to her. Nita’s one of those ones who can smell fear. But, come to think of it, they’re all like that.”

  Mandy smiled. Hope had never seen her do that before. Seeing it, she felt like she’d been handed another prize, an even bigger one.

  “But you did good today,” Mandy said. “It’s going to be easier now.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears,” Hope said, then shifted her weight back and took a seat at the table, motioning for Mandy to do the same.

  “You’re not like the others, are you? Most of them are doing just what you said, killing time. But you seem to be making the most of it. I mean, look, I’m sure you’d rather be anyplace but here—”

  “Got that right,” Mandy said.

  “Still, you’re taking advantage of every opportunity that comes your way—working toward your high school diploma, reading every book you can get your hands on, so the librarian tells me. Chaplain Nancy said you’re taking parenting classes too.

  “So . . . what’s the difference between you and the others? They have access to the same opportunities that you do, yet they’re marking time and you’re not. Why?”

  “Well, first off,” Mandy said, “I’m not the only one. Plenty of us are trying to make the best of our time here and prepare for something better on the outside. They don’t get noticed as much as some of the others because they’re like me, just trying to keep their heads down. It’s safer that way. Smarter too.

  “But if you’re asking why a few choose that smarter path when so many don’t”—she shrugged—“look, I can’t answer for anybody except myself, but I know what keeps me going. It’s Talia, my little girl.

  “When I first got here, I was convinced that I’d permanently screwed up my life. I was so depressed that they had me on suicide watch. I couldn’t imagine that anything good would ever happen to me, so what was the point? But then Nancy came to see me and kind of kicked me in the butt.

  “She said I was overselling myself, and that a person had to be way more dedicated to leading a life of crime than I was to screw up their entire life at twenty-one.”

  “Did she honestly say that?” Hope asked, laughing when Mandy bobbed her head. “She’s really something, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah.” Mandy grinned. “Her accent cracks me up too. Anyway, she convinced me that it really wasn’t too late to turn my life around and that I had a very good reason to try—Talia. My daughter is my hope, my reason for waking up every day. I want to build a good life for both of us.”

  “Looks like you’re heading in the right direction.”

  Realizing that she needed to escort Mandy back before her next class started, Hope got to her feet. Mandy did the same and they started walking toward the door.

  “Hope so. Just six months to go. Sometimes I can hardly believe it. Once I’m out of here, I’m never coming back.”

  “Good. Don’t,” Hope said. “Nothing personal, Mandy, but when those six months are up, I sincerely hope we never see each other again.”

  “Me too.”

  When Mandy laughed her whole face lit up. She seemed transformed, like an entirely different person from the somber woman Hope had seen on her very first day at the prison. Now, as they walked down the hallway together, companionably as two friends on a stroll, Hope couldn’t help but wonder if this was the quality that had first drawn her to that quiet young woman, an inner capacity for happiness that she kept hidden behind a mask of caution.

  “Hey,” Mandy said as they neared the dayroom, “I wanted to thank you for something. Those macramé bracelets we made last week? I gave mine to Talia and she loved it.”

  “Oh, good! I’m so happy she did.”

  “She was really excited. But you know who was even more excited?” Hope shook her head. “Me. It was the first time since I got here that I’d been able to give her anything. My mom buys her stuff for Christmas and birthdays and tells her it’s from me, but . . .”

  Mandy pressed her lips together and her eyes started to fill. Knowing what she was trying to say but couldn’t, Hope felt tears in her own eyes.

  For a mother, for any parent, there is nothing quite so heartfelt and instinctual as the desire to give g
ifts to her children. Helping Mandy fulfill that long-denied desire was a gift to Hope as well.

  Suddenly an idea popped into Hope’s mind. The moment it did, she knew, in a way that she hadn’t only a moment before, exactly why she was here, at this moment and among these women.

  She also knew what she needed to do about it.

  Chapter 21

  “Quilts.” Nancy’s eyes widened a bit, as if she wasn’t quite certain she’d heard Hope correctly. “You want them to make quilts?”

  “Yes,” Hope replied.

  “Right,” the chaplain said. “Why? I mean, couldn’t you just stick with the macramé bracelets? Or ceramics. Let them paint a coffee mug or something. Perhaps crocheting? My niece crocheted a scarf for me for Christmas last year. It was very nice.”

  “I’m sure,” Hope said. “When’s the last time you wore it?”

  “About . . .” Nancy screwed up her face, thinking. “About three months ago. My niece had a party—”

  “And I’m sure it was lovely, the party and the scarf. But a quilt is something you sleep under every night.

  “Think about that,” Hope said urgently, leaning forward, clutching the edge of Nancy’s desk. “Think about a child—let’s say a little girl, maybe five or six years old. Her mother is locked away behind a wall and can’t come out, can’t tuck her in at night, can’t comfort her when she wakes up in the dark crying after a bad dream.

  “Now think about what it would mean to that same child to get into bed at night and fall asleep under a quilt her mother made with her own hands. Maybe the fabrics are purple and pink, her favorite colors, and maybe the border has unicorns on it, her favorite animal. She knows that her mommy picked out all those fabrics just for her, stitched every seam and every inch of that quilt with her own hands.

  “Think about what that means to an innocent, vulnerable child who’s never been arrested, or charged, or convicted of anything but has been punished just the same, sentenced to months or even years of separation from her mother. But when she falls asleep under her quilt, it’s like her mother is there with her, protecting and sheltering her, keeping her warm and safe, reminding her that she matters and that, someday, they’ll be together again.